October 25, 2016 – Sun, 75 degrees

Miles Today: 12

Miles to Date: 18,449

States to Date: 45 

I voted today. It wasn’t easy: sending a letter to the Cambridge Election Commission a month ago, requesting a ballot mailed to an address where I would land after the October 12 mail out date with enough time for it to get back to Cambridge before November 8, filling in the oval circles, pedaling to a post office in Dallas, just to have my vote counted in a state where my ballot won’t possibly matter. Massachusetts is blue as the Texas sky.

By any economic measure, voting is a waste of time, unless perhaps you live in a swing state. But if I’ve learned anything in my year on a bicycle it’s that economic measures are often too meager. I take the time to vote because it’s a civic right; a tangible, if tiny, way to participate in our governmental process; a process that will only get better if more people vote. In a world where a mere 13% of people live in ‘full democracies,’ I vote because I can.

I hope that you vote too, by absentee ballot, by early voting, or on November 8. It is our privilege. It is our responsibility. It is how we shape our nation.